DRAFT DOCUMENT CONTENTS

How do we equip university graduates who now have a degree, but no experience, to become productive and useful contributors to industry on Day 01 after graduation?

When hiring a university intern, we know that they are learners, not experts. As such, we include them in teams, on projects and in meetings. We include them in efforts, tasks and chores. However, at no time do we ordinarily put interns into leadership positions over salted, experienced teams, nor do we give them responsibility for large budgets, projects or let them anywhere near production critical systems. Our reasoning is sound. In order to make sure that, given their inexperience, they will not in any way damage our company's ability to make money, we essentially let them watch, we don't let them drive. The reality is, internships are good ways to get hired and good ways to get exposed to a work culture. Internships incubate experienced followers in a particular culture, in a particular context. Internships do not incubate autonomous, pan-industry, innovative leaders capable of forming teams, companies, products and helping to evolve society. Nor are they designed to do such. Internships are tests to see if this candidate will fit into our culture.

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Matthew D Edwards

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What university graduates and tomorrow's leaders need are opportunities to personally learn what it takes to start, run and grow a business while identifying problems, potential solutions and implementing them accordingly. The leaders of tomorrow must be willing to identify, predict, determine and execute without fear of failure, lack of boundary definition or direction from another. In essence, we need a mechanism to foster an autonomous willingness to explore without fear of failure. How do we grow innovative, autonomous, technology business leaders before university graduation?

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Many believe we have solved this problem by offering internships. Unfortunately, while internships often provide experience in a corporate setting, teaching corporate behaviors, they do not equip today's youth to become tomorrow's leaders. Many of us have personal experience in this matter.

Legacy companies understandably want graduates they can hire, train and mold into their existing culture, products and services. New, young, start-up companies desiring original innovation want recent graduates full of new ideas, zeal and a vision for the world with the energy to do something about it. In the case of legacy companies, it may often be enough to graduate with a degree as the new graduate will be trained, molded and conformed into the mind-set and behavior of the company. In the case of innovative start-ups, having a degree isn't enough. Leadership, experiential opinion and the tenacity to pursue the implausible is what matters. To be a leader requires something a university degree can only academically provide. Academic theory is not experiential knowledge.

ar ds
Thursday, June 28, 2012 09:22:01

Draft Problem Statement and Background

DRAFT DOCUMENT CONTENTS

Construct a one to two semester entrepreneurial incubation program that joins senior level undergraduate or graduate students from multiple disciplines into a mock company format then required to develop and deliver a working, tested, demonstrable solution prototype as the final deliverable of the course effort that will compete in an intra- and interuniversity competition country-wide and that can be plausibly moved into market industry for economic gain and societal improvement.

Draft Definition of Effort Success

Minimum required elements necessary for successful student preparatory experience on first iteration: Host university administrative and multi-department chair support and sponsorship of program as part of a one or two semester, for-credit course focused on technology business entrepreneurial incubation as defined by this proposal Construction of at least one mock company composed of students from multiple disciplines within the university (For example: law, marketing, computer science, electrical engineering, business) Problem statement identification that is achievable within the defined course timeframe Successful completion of all planned deliverables by student company team Successful attendance and interactive participation of all planned lectures Successful passing of all planned exams regarding planned deliverable and lecture content Successful creation of working, demonstrable, tested prototype solution to the defined problem statement at end of the planned course timeline

Additional desired outcomes of first iteration:

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A plausibly useful working prototype capable of being implemented into a public market for economic gain The mock company converting to a real start-up post-graduate, or an existing host company agreeing to hire the mock company team, purchase licensing agreement for the product and moving the system into production as a working component of the existing company

At the end of each program will exist a lessons learned period whereby participants and contributors will identify what must be kept, changed or removed from the program prior to iteration two. More on this method will be expressed later in this document as the idea of continual improvement is not only an expectation of entrepreneurs, but of the program incubator itself.

Matthew D Edwards

th ew

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The ideal solution context is a program hosted by a well established higher learning institute in the host country that facilitates governmental, education, private and public sector sponsorship and involvement for the purposes of incubating new industry, new industry solutions, new companies, products and services, as well as, increasing employment opportunities for tomorrow's university graduates, increasing intellectual property holdings and economic strength through innovation. Should an established higher learning institute not find favorable this idea or a needed host be yet undiscovered, this program can easily run as a private endeavor absent sponsorship of existing public or private educational enterprise.

ar ds
Thursday, June 28, 2012 09:22:01

Draft Solution Proposal